When IAG announced its intention to fly the LEVEL A330-200 between Boston and Barcelona, I knew I had to try this flight. I had never been to Spain before, and Barcelona was the Spanish city I was most eager to visit.
As fortune would have it, fares for October were going below $300 round trip. That’s phenomenal for any transatlantic flight, but to have window seats (at the front!) be only $33 more (each way) as LEVEL did is even better.
Level Backstory
Sensing increased competition from low-cost carriers like Norwegian, IAG, which is also the parent company of British Airways and Iberia, knew it needed a low-cost option for consumers. Instead of solely lowering prices on its flagship services, it decided to launch a low-cost carrier with long-haul bases at Barcelona El Prat Airport and Paris Orly Airport, as well as a short-haul base at Vienna International Airport in Austria.
For the interim, these flights are operated by crews from Iberia. However, to the customer, the flights as well as the aircraft are LEVEL branded, so it is somewhat distinct from Iberia at least as far as consumer-facing aspects go.
October 25, 2018
I arrived at the airport a bit closer than I’d have liked for the flight. This was largely my own fault, but I figured that there’d be no issue getting through security. After all, Logan Terminal E virtually never has a line. I figured this would be the case this time, too.
I was wrong.
For the first time ever, the Terminal E security line was more than a few people. And it wasn’t just a little bit longer. It was about 100 people longer than usual.
First thing I did: hop in line. I continued to notice that the line wasn’t really moving. At this time, I also heard an announcement for LEVEL 2626 saying that the flight was boarding.
‘How is this possible?’ I thought. ‘It’s 7:15 and the flight doesn’t board until 7:35.’
A few minutes later, with no real line progress made, there was another announcement for boarding. It was also for LEVEL 2626. And a few minutes after that, another announcement. This time, it was a “last and final call” for LEVEL 2626.
Through a combination of sheer luck and a helpful TSA agent, I managed to make my flight by mere moments. Lesson learned: no matter how short the lines seem, it’s always best to get there early.
Made It
Having made the flight by mere moments, I was simply relieved to be on the plane. Shortly after I sat down, we pushed back.
At full power, the buzzsaw from the CF-6 engines on our LEVEL A330-200 sounds more like a whine than a growl. However, with a slight scale back in power after rotation, the growl soon emerged. (Read The Buzzsaw Effect for more on engine noise.)
While living in Somerville and Cambridge, I had watched planes fly the CELTK departure from Runway 33L numerous times. This was my first time flying that departure from 33L myself, so it was somewhat exciting to be doing so.
The flight over was relatively uneventful. Around 6 hours after takeoff, we finally started to see sunlight again. Shortly thereafter, it became apparent that we were back over land again. It was almost time to land.
Then, while we were descending, it became apparent that we were in some kind of holding pattern. I’m pretty sure we looped around three or four times before we were on final approach. That being said, I wasn’t all that surprised, as those early morning banks at international airports tend to be busy.
After what seemed like 20 minutes or so of holding, we eventually made our way onto final approach. Eventually, the landing gear came down and the flaps deployed, and we touched down on Runway 25R.
The taxi to the gate was relatively quick, and I was pleasantly surprised by how quick customs was as well. The E.U. has that stuff figured out.
October 27, 2018
While the flight over was a bit nervewracking in that I almost missed it, the way back was to be somewhat tenuous. It turns out that a Nor’easter was scheduled to hit Boston on this day, bringing gusts of wind in excess of 50 mph. While most modern aircraft can operate in inclement weather, I was quite concerned that we’d end up diverting somewhere. It wasn’t that I was worried about whether or not we’d land safely. I just did not want to have any detours on our route home.
Regardless, I boarded the plane, and found my seat in 6A. This was a good place to be sitting for more buzzsaw noise. Yet again, I wasn’t disappointed by the powerful takeoff from Runway 25L.
Following rotation, we made an immediate left turn which took us over the water. The weather in Barcelona wasn’t fantastic, either, so there was some climbing through the clouds to be done.
Flying over the Atlantic wasn’t notable, except for the fact that there were large swaths of time where there was no cloud cover below us. As such, I could see the ocean below: perhaps unnerving for some, but cool for me.
The flight itself was surprisingly bumpy. I was a little concerned that so much turbulence was perhaps rooted in battling headwinds, which might give us less fuel to use when in the holding pattern. I certainly hoped it wasn’t the case, but I tend to overthink things.
Autoland
Around an hour before our scheduled arrival, the pilot started an announcement with “the weather in Boston is not good.” However, instead of saying that we’d be landing somewhere else, he said that we’d have to do an autoland, which is where the plane’s autopilot flies the aircraft approach all the way to touchdown.
While I was happy to know that we’d at least attempt landing in Boston, I was a bit unnerved by the weather forecast I’d seen. If we encountered wind gusts in excess of 50 mph, we’d likely have to abort our landing attempt. And with us battling headwinds across the Atlantic, I wasn’t sure how many attempts we’d have.
Made It Back
I’ll be honest, I was pretty nervous during the entire descent. We broke out of the clouds just over I-93. At that point, I figure we were around 1,500 feet above the ground or so. The next thing that I recognized, or so I thought, was the beach near Castle Island, and I was concerned because I thought we were too high for the approach. However, I soon realized that the beach I saw was a different one, as we soon passed over Castle Island and the adjacent cranes. Once we were over the cranes at what seemed to be the right height, I figured we’d be OK.
Sure enough, the edge of the runway appeared under us. Within seconds, we touched down on Runway 4R, marking a successful and safe end to our flight.
Overall Impression
I had a solid experience flying LEVEL. I was impressed by the friendliness of the crew on both flights, and getting to fly at the front of an A330-200 for such a good price was no doubt worth it.
However, as a new entity, LEVEL clearly has some growing pains. Not only did I have trouble with obtaining my boarding pass for the outbound flight, but LEVEL’s website hardly works. In fact, it was only after putting my reservation information into Iberia’s website that I had any sort of success getting my reservation. That being said, I’m optimistic that they will sort these issues out.
All told, it was a trip worth taking. While it’s certainly true that “you get what you pay for” with low-cost carriers, I think that the service matched or exceeded what I paid in terms of value.